'A beautiful soul': Funeral held for baby boy killed in wrong-way crash on Highway 401
A funeral was held on Wednesday for a three-month-old boy who died after being involved in a wrong-way crash on Highway 401 in Whitby last week.
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken warned Wednesday that President Vladimir Putin could quickly order an invasion of Ukraine if he had a pretext for doing so but that NATO allies stand ready to inflict heavy sanctions on Russia's economy if that happens.
Tensions over a Russian troop buildup along the border of Ukraine have been a focus of Blinken's weeklong Europe trip and topped the agenda of his meeting Wednesday with NATO counterparts in Latvia. The Ukrainian government is seeking to align with NATO and the West.
"We don't know whether President Putin has made the decision to invade. We do know that his is putting in place the capacity to do so on short order should he so decide," Blinken told reporters in Riga, Latvia's capital. "We must prepare for all contingencies."
"We're also urging Ukraine to continue to exercise restraint because, again, the Russian playbook is to claim provocation for something that they were planning to do all along," he said.
Blinken said the U.S. has "made it clear to the Kremlin that we will respond resolutely, including with a range of high-impact economic measures that we've refrained from using in the past." He gave no details on what kind of "high-impact" sanctions were under consideration if Russia did invade Ukraine.
The European Union's Parliament approved a nonbinding resolution in April to cut off Russia from the so-called SWIFT system of international payments if its troops entered Ukraine.
Such a move would go far toward blocking Russian businesses from the global financial system. Western allies reportedly considered such a step in 2014 and 2015, during earlier Russian-led escalations of tensions over Ukraine. Then-Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev said at the time the Russian response to that financially crippling move would be "without limits."
Apart from targeting Russia for sanctions, Blinken said that "NATO is prepared to reinforce its defenses on the eastern flank." He did not elaborate. The military organization already has forces stationed in the Baltic states -- Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania -- and Poland.
Blinken is scheduled to meet Thursday in Sweden with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov. He said he would encourage Russia's top diplomat to return to talks under the "Normandy" format, with France and Germany.
"There is a diplomatic path forward. We are certainly not looking for conflict," Blinken said.
A 2015 peace deal brokered by France and Germany helped end large-scale battles in eastern Ukraine sparked after Russia annexed the Crimean Peninsula the previous year. But efforts to reach a political settlement failed and sporadic skirmishes continue along the tense line of contact.
While in Stockholm on Thursday, Blinken also plans to hold talks with Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba on the sidelines of a minister-level meeting of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe.
------
Cook reported from Brussels. Ellen Knickmeyer in Washington contributed to this report
This version corrects the spelling of Russian minister Lavrov's first name to Sergey, not Sergei.
A funeral was held on Wednesday for a three-month-old boy who died after being involved in a wrong-way crash on Highway 401 in Whitby last week.
There has been a "sophisticated" cybersecurity breach detected on B.C. government networks, Premier David Eby confirmed Wednesday evening.
Toronto police say a man was taken into custody outside Drake's Bridle Path mansion Wednesday afternoon after he tried to gain access to the residence.
U.S. President Joe Biden said for the first time Wednesday he would halt shipments of American weapons to Israel, which he acknowledged have been used to kill civilians in Gaza, if Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu orders a major invasion of the city of Rafah.
Dakota Joshua had a goal and two assists and the Vancouver Canucks scored three third-period goals to claw out a 5-4 comeback victory over the Edmonton Oilers in Game 1 of their second-round playoff series Wednesday.
One of the Indian nationals accused of murdering British Columbia Sikh activist Hardeep Singh Nijjar says in a social media video that he received a Canadian study permit with the help of an Indian immigration consultancy.
Pfizer has agreed to settle more than 10,000 lawsuits about cancer risks related to the now discontinued heartburn drug Zantac, Bloomberg News reported on Wednesday, citing people familiar with the deal.
Quebec Premier Francois Legault is defending his comments about a new history museum after he was accused by a prominent First Nations group of trying to erase their history.
Independent U.S. presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. had a parasite in his brain more than a decade ago, but has fully recovered, his campaign said, after the New York Times reported about the ailment.
The stakes have been set for a bet between Vancouver and Edmonton's mayors on who will win Round 2 of the Stanley Cup playoffs.
A grieving mother is hosting a helmet drive in the hopes of protecting children on Manitoba First Nations from a similar tragedy that killed her daughter.
A chicken farmer near Mattawa made an 'eggstraordinary' find Friday morning when she discovered one of her hens laid an egg close to three times the size of an average large chicken egg.
A P.E.I. lighthouse and a New Brunswick river are being honoured in a Canada Post series.
An Ontario man says he paid more than $7,700 for a luxury villa he found on a popular travel website -- but the listing was fake.
Whether passionate about Poirot or hungry for Holmes, Winnipeg mystery obsessives have had a local haunt for over 30 years in which to search out their latest page-turners.
Eighty-two-year-old Susan Neufeldt and 90-year-old Ulrich Richter are no spring chickens, but their love blossomed over the weekend with their wedding at Pine View Manor just outside of Rosthern.
Alberta Ballet's double-bill production of 'Der Wolf' and 'The Rite of Spring' marks not only its final show of the season, but the last production for twin sisters Alexandra and Jennifer Gibson.
A mother goose and her goslings caused a bit of a traffic jam on a busy stretch of the Trans-Canada Highway near Vancouver Saturday.